The Night Everything Ended
by Emote Control
Summary: The Liars learn the horrible truth behind A. Crossover with Terminator: SCC. Note that this is a VERY DARK STORY.


Special thanks to my beta reader Runawaybaby555

Tonight, everything ended.

For five years the Liars had been tormented by A. Ezra was in jail for child abuse after A had beaten Malcolm, and bad things happened there to people accused of that. Hanna's mother had committed suicide after being framed for stealing millions from her clients. Melissa had confessed to killing Allison to prevent Spencer from taking the fall. The less said about Emily's parents, the better.

And still the texts and cruelty hadn't stopped. But finally, the Liars had tracked A down to a bunker outside of Rosewood. They had no plans to question him or her, to find out A's motivation. They simply planned to kill A, and were armed with guns and knives.

"This is it." Emily said harshly, planting an explosive charge against the door. All of them were ready for tonight, they had trained themselves obsessively for months. Then, suddenly, the door opened and a tear gas grenade shot out. The four girls – no, they were women now – choked on the gas.

A, wearing a gas mask, came out and attacked viciously. They were no match for him or her, A was brutal. Soon the Liars were bound, and dragged inside.

But once they were inside and bound hand and foot, A was genuinely tender. A put salve on their wounds, and washed their burning eyes gently.

"What's going on?" Hanna gasped. "Why are you being so nice, you bitch?"

"Because I'm really your friend." A said, and removed the gas mask.

It was not surprising that it took the Liars a few moments to recognize such a familiar face, for the sight ran counter to everything they had been taught to believe was true, and raised to believe was sane.

A was Aria.

But not the Aria they knew. She was older by decades, for one thing. But more than that, Aria was – changed. Appearance is shaped by more than muscle and fat and bone, it is shaped by our experiences and thoughts. This Aria had seen horrible things, and had horrible things done to her, and done horrible things in turn.

"Impossible." Aria whispered. "You're me."

"How can this be?" Emily asked.

"There will be lots of new technologies in 2031." A replied elliptically. "Polyalloys, plasma weapons, stem cells, neural net CPUs. I think you can guess what another technology will be."

"Time machines." Spencer whispered softly. "Time machines." Louder. "Fucking time machines!" Louder still. "You're Aria from the future!"

"You always were smart, Spence." A said tenderly. Then her voice turned hard. "You were smart right until you stood next to a window when the nuclear bomb that destroyed Philadelphia went off. The shock wave shattered it, and one of the shards went right through your left eye into your clever, clever brain. You collapsed on top of me, dead. I think you were the luckiest of us."

A pointed to Hanna. "I found you a week later, while searching for food. You had cholera, the result of drinking from a dirty rain puddle after water stopped coming out of the faucets. You should have paid more attention in biology class. I had bottled water I'd looted, but I needed it for myself. You died of dehydration from vomiting and diarrhea, right in my arms."

"Your fate was worst of all, Ems. They managed to get some order reestablished a month after, but it was rough and cruel. A military police squad gang-raped you. I did what I could to comfort you afterwards, but you were too traumatized and slit your wrists when I turned my back."

"I couldn't cope either, in a way. I died inside. But then I was reborn, as _A_. A tougher, stronger version of the little songbird Aria, a version could bribe and lie and kill. Later on I figured out that I'd had a psychotic break, and that oddly it saved me. But I always regretted your deaths, you see, almost as much as I regretted my own."

"And you came back in time to make us tough enough to survive the nuclear war." Aria deduced. Once the very thought would have had her weeping, but she had been strengthened by five years of torment.

"Exactly!" A grinned widely, and the Liars realized that the future Aria was not entirely sane. "After I heard about the Time Displacement Device, I knew what I had to do. I killed a tech and cut out his ID implant to get past the outer layer of security, and then shot my way through the inner layer of guards. I programmed the TDD to take me back six years before today, so I would have time to temper you all as A. That's how I knew everyone's secrets. I _remembered _them."

"Six years ago, that's when Allison was murdered." Hanna said. "Did you do that, too?"

"Oh, no. That was Jason, who killed her in a blind panic after she caught him having anal sex with his half-sister Melissa." A explained. Spencer went green. "In the original history he turned himself in three days later out of shame. That's how I knew what really happened. I ambushed him right after the murder and injected him with roofenal. That's why he never remembered anything about the night Allison disappeared. I needed a mystery to provoke your minds, to make you keener, and that served my purpose well. As for all the people I hurt – well, they were going to die anyway in a few years."

"And it never occurred to you to try and prevent the nuclear war?" Spencer asked sarcastically.

"How the hell could I? Skynet was going to be built no matter what I did, there was too much money for the contractors involved. That's the supercomputer that will acquire sentience, and launch the nukes." A added. "But there's more I have to tell you."

She spoke to them for hours, explaining every major event that would happen over the next twenty years of endless war against the Machines. She explained about Infiltrators, and how to spot one. She explained the weak points in HK armor, and about Aerial patrol routes. Make sure to follow this warlord, and not that one. Under no circumstances be part of the Manhattan Offensive, it was going to be a disaster. And on and on.

The bunker had six months of food and water in it and plenty of guns and ammo. A had paid for it by knowing five years in advance which companies would succeed, and which would fail, and through knowing that soon, money wouldn't have any use. After A had explained everything, she unbound them, expecting to lead them forth into the new, dark world.

Instead, they beat A to death. And they sat in the bunker while everything ended.


End file.
